Kill two birds with one stone

By now, you’ve probably heard so much about social media marketing that you’re getting a little sick of it. You’ve been told that social networking sites are a gold mine, that they’re a great way to communicate with customers, they’re effective for targeting your messages and improving the likelihood you come up in local searches.

And those are just the benefits I’ve talked about.

If it’s any consolation, social media marketing has proven to be more than worth the hype. In fact, a recent study, which polled a group of SEO experts, found that social marketing is the top driver of website traffic for small businesses. SEO was also found to be a large traffic generator for small businesses.

Social media’s two-bird effect
Few business owners would probably argue about social media’s importance to marketing.

But right now, you’re probably saying to yourself, “Hey, what about all the other advertising methods you so-called experts are telling me to adopt? How do I incorporate my online and SEO and mobile strategies and still stay within budget?”

One of social media’s plethora of benefits is that it can tie directly into your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy – making a social search engine optimization strategy both a double-bonus and a mouthful.

Three tips for combining social with SEO
You might think that integrating your social marketing strategies into your SEO plan is complicated, but there are some very simple steps you can take. Here are three:

– Tip 1: Start with keywords
As with any SEO-based strategy, it all starts with selecting the right keywords and phrases. The difference, though, is that your social marketing campaigns should use a keyword list that is far more selective. For instance, use the terms you think will be most likely to engage consumers through social channels. Once you have chosen a select few words, phrases and/or themes, use them extensively during your social media marketing strategies.

– Tip 2: Make your content “shareable”
Something that many people don’t realize is that the amount of interaction that occurs within their social communities actually has an impact on SEO. How many times people retweet a story from your site, the amount of likes and comments on your Facebook page, the number of followers – these and other factors will help you significantly.

– Tip 3: Post content on a regular basis
Not only does new content affect you positively with regard to searches, but it is the best way to build your social community and achieve regular activity with consumers. Needless to say, all of these benefit you from an SEO standpoint.

Developing your marketing campaign might feel overwhelming at the moment, but integrating your social strategies directly into your SEO plans can kill two birds with one stone.

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